Glass Underfoot: two poems by Abigail S. Diaz

porch light, image from Pixabay, modified

Glass Underfoot

I watch the rain etch lines down the window, each drop tracing what I never said.

The house holds its breath now—

your slippers still by the door, your chair still warm with absence.

The world hums on, silver and bright on the outside—

but I walk beneath it like glass underfoot, cracking with every step.

Laughter spills from passing cars, distant and hollow,

like church bells rung underwater.

I try to catch it—that sound of life—

but it slides right through my fingers, like the tail of a dream fading at dawn.

Some nights, I mouth prayers I cannot feel.

Words drift up, ash-light, curling into silence

as if Heaven itself is holding its breath.

My hands ache from clinging to what I cannot hold—

your voice, your gaze, the quiet way you’d hum hymns under your breath,

as if you knew all would be well eventually.

I trace those melodies now in the hum of the dryer,

the creak of the stairs, the hush between words.

And though I walk through the shadowed field of what’s no longer,

I know—somewhere—there is a dawn that will not shame the night.

So, I keep the porch light on, just in case Grace passes by.

And I whisper your name, not to the silence—

but to the One who holds us both.

                                 *

Room With No Corners 

This room refuses corners.

Everything bends.

Walls curve like questions no one dares to finish.

Light spills in sideways—

not bold, just tired of asking permission.

I live here now. In this tilt.

Where the floor won’t hold what I keep dropping—

his name, my sleep,

whole mornings unopened.

Grief has teeth but doesn’t bite clean.

It chews slowly, pressing memory into pulp behind my ribs.

I want silence to stay still,

but it keeps shifting shape—

becomes your cologne, a cough behind glass,

the chair that forgets you’re gone.

I pray in fractured architecture.

No cathedral, just cracked drywall

and a ceiling that won’t answer back.

Still, I speak—not to be heard

but because breath needs somewhere to go.

Is this what belief becomes?

Not clarity, but refusal—

to vanish, to fold, to let dark define the walls.

So, I mark time in flickers.

Light that curves like a spine bending toward the sky.

It doesn’t fill the room, but names it.

And that, for now, is enough to stand in.

_________________________

Abigail Diaz is a South Florida-based

freelance writer whose poetry explores

grief, faith, and healing. Rooted in

Puerto Rican heritage and shaped by

her Chicago upbringing, she writes to

connect, restore, and grow in Christ.

Her work reflects a journey from sorrow

to light, guided by spiritual reflection

and hope. 

December 2025 issue